Even The Bones Would Do
by Emma CS Me
Summary: Logan thinks he is being cruel; parading his wildfire in front of Duncan's pile of ash and cinders. Slash.


**A/N: **Title, and lines before the two sections, all come from the poem "Daddy," by Sylvia Plath.

* * *

**EVEN THE BONES WOULD DO**

_If I've killed one man, I've killed two_

_The vampire who said he was you._

It's another darkened thing in a darkened sunny town; Logan pretends it doesn't matter. That no-one would care. That Duncan probably doesn't care, but is (and has always been) willing to offer up any part of himself for Logan's benefit. Logan knows it's a cliche; while Lilly rots in plush velvet and oak, Logan pumps himself into the flesh closest to hers – he can't remember to care.

It's always dark and Duncan never makes a sound, so sometimes Logan lets himself pretend it's not happening. His flesh is not in this place reality says it is; Duncan's feather-light touches come tortuously close to amnesia, but never enough. Reaching into Duncan is like reaching into a void, searching for the anesthesia, but pulling back before captured. Logan thinks he is being cruel; parading his wildfire in front of Duncan's pile of ash and cinders. He can't remember to care.

Tonight it's in Duncan's room, like it has always been, because everything happens in Duncan's room. Duncan's room was where he kissed Lilly for the first time; Duncan's room is where they and Veronica cried after her funeral; Duncan's room is where there are spots of Logan's dead brown blood hidden in the corners.

He has ended up on top of Duncan, on the bed, both of them squirming. Logan presses their bodies together through clothing and the cold. Touching Duncan's bare skin is a little like touching ice that burns, blistering him – that is to be saved for special occasions; those moments of extreme self-destruction. Duncan has no such worries; head buried in the crook of Logan's neck; breath landing on his skin; hands traveling up Logan's shirt to plot and map the external scars.

Logan knows if the lights were on he'd see the corpse of the sympathy Duncan used to wear for him, before everything shattered. Looking at Duncan now is like looking at a concave mirror; thinned and shriveled in a fairground, this warped reflection of his best friend. Logan's not helping, but the explosion in his veins doesn't leave room to know that. So he keeps it dark.

Duncan's form moves jerkily, wrapping his hand around Logan's dick dutifully. It's bitterly, disgustingly humorous to see the way Duncan moves; like a child trying to take its first steps in the world – Logan's brutal, post-apocalyptic world. Logan wants to tell him no; to banish him; lock him in that safer cold vacuum. But his inferno is so pathetically lonely; it's easier to burn alive with a friend.

Logan comes and maybe Duncan does too; it doesn't really register. Duncan's body stills and Logan feels he's trying not shiver; trying to adjust to the blizzard, attacking him worse for his brief respite. Logan thinks he should run away; throw Duncan out of his warmth and let him know that cold. Learn to live in it, learn not to quake. One day, the contrast will be too high and Logan doesn't particular want a Duncan-shaped ice statue.

He doesn't touch Duncan, because touching Duncan is corrosive and poisoned. It's a cliche and he knows it; this is not Lilly and it's not Veronica, or anything else in their history. It's not even really Duncan; it's a demented parody, and Logan should be disgusted with such disrespect for his friend's memory. He shouldn't look.

He does, because this wire frame friend/fuckbuddy is still _here._

* * *

_Any less the black man who_

_Bit my pretty red heart in two_

It's not self destruction; Duncan knows he's too secure – full of artificial warnings and fail-safes – for that. It's self destruction for Logan; a haphazardly built shack full of decorations and character. That can be set alight and reduced to charcoal, soot and melted plastic. Duncan's metal box resists the heat, keeps him closed, keeps him safe, keeps him so very, very, very cold.

It always used to be Logan; Logan sneaking into his house, his room in the middle of the night; viciously bleeding, viciously talking and vicious in general. Duncan was a leash and a muzzle; reigning in Logan's bite and bark (whichever was worse). Then Lilly shredded his synthetic fibres and Logan ran free, blood and hate and fuel landing on everyone. Pretty little Veronica, covered in gasoline but never quite good enough to burn. Duncan almost made her with a touch that summoned up all flame in him – he ran and hoped she would not catch; he thought she would. She didn't, but there were ashes on her. His burn died for good, not that anyone noticed.

It's a comfort, having Logan's body on top of him, like a blanket insulating him. Logan is blazing in his own world and sucking all into his inferno; Duncan is freezing, shivering, cracking, starving, arctic explorer cold and he doesn't even care that he's sticking his hand straight into the fire, because it is _warm_ there.

Duncan finds his hands reaching under Logan's shirt, tracing the scars that run all over his back. Logan lets out a small moan – he doubts Logan even notices – and Duncan feels a melodramatic sort of envy. The thin lines of fuel Logan is covered in; every day before and every day after. The world has decided to burn Logan Echolls; Duncan would like to be warm and hurt in body and real and blah blah blah. Logan's father beats him to a pulp and Duncan's doesn't; he's the _lucky_ one in this situation.

Yeah, right.

Duncan kind of understands that there's something he should do now, like it's become his duty (as resident Knight in Shining Armor) to make Logan come on him. Lilly would laugh if she saw this; throw her head back in amusement and say: _Good for you, Donut. Take what you can get; and as consolation prizes go, _damn._ Don't you get what I saw in him?_

Veronica would be scandalized, betrayed, but maybe a little intrigued. She always was less innocent than she seemed. At least, that was the old Veronica: this new Veronica would probably just shrug, shake her head and make some comment about 09ers using sex to fix everything. He wishes he could make her care; wishes he could make her not care; wishes her out of his fucked-up life, wishes her back into it.

Logan shivers and shudders and gasps like he's alive, they way you're meant to in the middle of sex. Duncan can't make noises like that. Logan comes on Duncan's clothes and the feel of Logan's quaking body pressed against his forces the semen out of Duncan too. Logan's eyes, arms, hands are twitching in the aftermath, but Duncan grows still as the cold breeze returns. Logan turns away and Duncan wants to ask to be invited back into that flame, but he's always been too nice to ask for what he needs.

Logan just stares at his friend for a little. Duncan feels like a dead animal in a museum, frozen and preserved in a block of ice.


End file.
